Autumn Wiggins, founder of Upcycle Exchange
I would install Freedom Toasters all over the city. A Freedom Toaster is a kiosk that distributes all kinds of free Linux operating systems and other open-source software through an easy-to-use interface that burns the programs you need onto a CD or copies it to a USB drive. It's free as in freedom, not as in waffles. I think there are all kinds of situations where this would come in handy for the community, though. Proprietary software can be ridiculously expensive, and let's face it, many people in St. Louis are experiencing hard times (most still have computers and the wherewithal to utilize them to improve their lives). Quality free open-source alternatives can be hard to find online because they do not have "SEO experts" or any money to advertise. Maybe your hard drive dies and can't even get online. Just go down to your nearest Freedom Toaster with your thumb drive, install a bootable version of Linux on it, and you can now have a functioning computer. The kiosks are DIY and completely customizable, so local artists and techies could work together on designing them. It would double as a public art project. Freedom Toasters only exist in Africa right now, so this would make St. Louis the first U.S. city to implement them. Total nerd cred.

Andi Smith, comedian
I think it would help if we stopped building stuff right next to the Galleria so I could get to the mall in less than three hours. Also, the city should implement some sort of legal limit on the amount of time boys can be depressed about Albert Pujols breaking up with us.

Jane Cunningham, state senator
My goal is to work with legislative colleagues to ensure every child has access to a quality, accredited school.

Kholood Eid

Reddit Hudson

Kholood Eid

Andi Smith

Sam Kogos, owner of Riverbend
Restaurant & Bar
I have only lived in the St. Louis area for a little over seven years now, after a move from my hometown of New Orleans. St. Louis, like New Orleans, can also be a very parochial place —segregated racially, socially and economically. My idea would be this: If St. Louis City, St. Louis County, St. Charles County and Jefferson County all merged to be called Metropolitan St. Louis That would rank us around the fifth largest U.S. city, right after Houston. Being in the top five, our city would benefit from all kinds of increased federal dollars, tax credits and programs. By merging individual municipalities, taxpayers would save millions from the duplications in services.

After the region is merged, we would need to give the mayor more power. We have too many elected officials and governmental bodies. We would be much better served if the mayor actually had the constitutional power to get big things done, like mayors in other large cities such as Chicago and Houston. Our mayor has to share power with two other elected officials, so nothing really changes. People like to complain when mayors have too much power, but cities with a strong mayor and weak council form of government are in better shape than we are.

I always find it funny when people travel outside the state and someone asks where they are from. They say St. Louis as proud as can be — not Arnold, Kirkwood, Fenton or St. Charles, which is where they really live. The city of St. Louis is our identity. It's important to the whole region.

Tiffany Minx, owner of Apop Records
Extending the MetroLink train line beyond its limited central corridor function would, I think, be very beneficial for everyone. It could decrease car traffic, allow for people to seek jobs easier and be an asset to attract new residents. Also, we have this huge deposit of non-STLer college kids stuck in a few specific locales; no disrespect intended, but St. Louis has so much more to offer outside of these safe zones.

Hedy Epstein, Local activist and Holocaust survivor
The march of democracy is sweeping the world, and it is rising here in St. Louis. We, the "Occupy" movement, are just getting started, and we're winning! We're actually building the world that most people want. We're building it this year, next year -- until it happens.

Susan Slaughter, retired principal trumpet of the St. Louis Symphony
If I had the power to change one thing, it would be to make the educational quality of all of our schools — city and county — the best in the country, and of course music and the arts would have high priority. That is what I think would improve life in the city of St. Louis, not just in 2012 but for many, many years to come. The march of democracy is sweeping the world, and it is rising here in St. Louis. We, the Occupy movement, are just getting started, and we're winning! We're actually building the world that most people want. We're building it this year, next year — until it happens.

Chris Duncan, WXOS (101.1 FM) sports analyst and former Cardinals outfielder
The baseball purists are probably going to hate me for this, but as a former player and a big-time baseball fan, I would've loved to see the new Busch Stadium with a retractable roof, whether it's in April — it gets pretty cold, with rain and sleet — or in July and August, when it's smoldering hot with people having strokes in the stands. If you have a nice day, you can have it open. No rain delays, no canceled games. There's nothing like sitting with a hot dog and a cold beer in a climate-controlled stadium. I can't stand swamp ass in the middle of July while watching a game.

Related Content

St. Louis is 'over'. Our last 'window of opportunity' to compete as a city, against any city,
closed in 1998, when Civic Progress refused to free Kiel Opera House, and then allowed grand center to 'strangle' MUNY 6 years later. Freeing both and putting those who interfere in jail would have helped St. Louis survive. That was then.That window of opportunity is closed. Honest talk radio? You have to be joking. And city-county merger does nothing. Nada.

As a new St. Louis resident, I may not yet have developed a full "city sense," but as a longtime resident of the rural scene, I sure know bullshit when I smell it. That odor came through loud and clear from Redditt Hudson's short advertisement disguised as earnest examination. I know nothing about the man or his politics, but any candidate who simultaneously calls for an end to the educational blame game, then goes on to blame his opponents ("those legislators who find a way to take more resources away from public education every year"), doesn't really want to solve the problem. He simply wants to get elected by appealing to the negative fear factor of parents and educators (a large constituency to be sure). The solution to the educational problem involves both dollars and sense. Unfortunately, Hudson appears to me to be impoverished -- at least in the latter.

Set up flower and rose stands on all corners and magazine vendor stands and give the city a New York appeal. Promote the historic beauty of this town as much or more as the Cardinals and the beer drinking ball cap crowd to appeal to a wider artistic audience and draw a different type of tourist to this town. Add lighting to the Arch and some of the downtown city skyline and bridges like they have done at Le Cirque Hotel / Lee Circle in New Orleans & New York , Loew's in New York and the bridges in Memphis, Brooklyn Bridge... the kind of lighting that changes colors and lights up the city.

We don't need any more immigrants with a probable "real" unemployment rate of about 15-18%. Your comment was quite self-serving. If I could change one thing in St. Louis, it would be to end the epidemiology "experiments" around St. Louis that are ruining our health and quality of life, and sometimes even killling the ones you love.

Another restaurant cliaimed to use fresh mozz arella cheese,where it's dishes were actually made with economy cheddar.the "fresh pasta"advertieshed on another meau tumed out to be frozen.--Agedate. ℃⊙M--a nice and free place for younger women and older men,or older women and younger men,to interact with each other.

Another restaurant cliaimed to use fresh mozz arella cheese,where it's dishes were actually made with economy cheddar.the "fresh pasta"advertieshed on another meau tumed out to be frozen.--Agedate. ℃⊙M--a nice and free place for younger women and older men,or older women and younger men,to interact with each other.

I would 'free' both Kiel and MUNY, finally, or other cities completely erase St. Louis as a destination. Whether St. Louis would 'gag' rather than go to either, they are our only 'way back to the convention and travel world'. That's the money the region needs desperately. There are no political solutions, not in time to do any good.

I was just wondering if I remember correctly. I believe sometime in 1984 perhaps November. There was an amendment passed in Missouri to legalize gambling. I believe somewhere around 70% of voters said yes. Interesting why they voted this way. The promise was to give a percentage of the monies produced by the lottery to Missouri schools. I can not quote anything. I am just going by what I vaguely remember. I heard recently that power ball ticket pricing was going up to $2.00. The schools I believe get less than a third of the money produced by Missouri gambling. Is that amount going to change with the increased purchase price. What I am saying is, Is the Missouri Lottery, governed by whoever going to give the approximate 1/3 of the new monies produced by the $1.00 increase or rather the 100% increase of ticket costs in addition to the monies already received? I think it would be great if the Missouri schools would receive at least 1/2 of the monies produced. There are too many schools closing in the city of St. Louis. We need these schools to stay open and we need the best teachers to teach a wider variety of subjects with the best equipment/tools necessary provided to educate in Missouri schools. If we had more of that money we should already have our children would have better choices in life and a better future.

Well, it doesn't take a PhD to see good people become desperately bad when facing poverty, social stigmas and comeptition but especially, educational oppression.

People will flat-out "lose their religion" when the going gets tough but we don't have to...

My New Year's Revolution will the evolution of St. Louis, from the old fearful, apatheic and hateful spirits of the past, tricking the rich and poor into stealing, killing and destroying each other...

To a new idea of who we are and what we can help each other become..Sme will want to keep recycling the insanity of greed, racism and suevival of the fittest but they are the ones that will not survive, according to the latest research on the effect of being trapped in a separation reality.

Businesses really don't want isolationists and neither do religious organization and those who pretend to care, are still really isolated... not to mention we're built and literally designed to need a part to play, in the totality of life so...

Enter The SMILE Ministries to open people to finding their personally designated role in reconnecting others to life....

You can have your doubts, your fears, your faith or your courage but you'd better get ready for the (R)evolution of your mind!!

I would bring progressive and honest talk radio to St. Louis. All we have now is FOX, and it is not honest, fair, balanced nor correct. We need to have shows like Thom Hartmann, Randi Rhodes, and others who are not lickers of the Murdoch boots! It's time to have the other side of the aisle heard here in the midwest, and St. Louis needs it badly.

The city of St. Louis is a county in and of itself separate from St. Louis County. There are some fifty separate municipalities in St. Louis County. There has to be some way to reform this incongruity seen in only two other areas of the country (Baltimore and somewhere on the West Coast). The city and county have to remerge. This was done with the "Board of Freeholders". There was a suit by renters who stated that property owners did not have exclusive rights. They won and the final solution was no longer final. The courts ruled against property owners and the country continues to deteriorate in the move toward a socialist takeover of property rights. Mayor Slay, in my opinion, is doing a very good job. However, it is obvious that he is "leading like Custer".